Sisters found in refrigerated trailer say this wasn’t the first time as driver faces felony conviction

Two sisters found in the back of a refrigerated trailer say this wasn’t the first time they had been transported that way. 

The sisters were found in the trailer last week after the semi truck they were stored in lost a tire, causing a wreck involving a total of five vehicles on Interstate 15 in Lindon, Utah. The tractor trailer was driven by 28-year-old Jacob Ortell Scott.

According to KSL, a trooper “observed two sets of eyes in the refrigerated trailer” about an hour into the investigation of the incident. At this point, the trooper went back to (Scott) and asked who was in the trailer?” Scott at first denied knowledge of people inside of the trailer, but soon admitted his two half sisters were inside. 

Troopers later learned that the 12 and 14-year-old girls “had been in the refrigerated trailer since they left their milk farm in Huntington and that they were headed to Salt Lake City… Google Maps shows that the fastest drive time from Huntington to Lindon is over two hours. Thus, the girls were locked in the compartment for more than three hours.”

The girls were reportedly heading to Salt Lake City to take a test for school. The girls told officers they “were being transported in the refrigerator because there were not enough seats in the passenger compartment. The two girls disclosed that they had been transported in a similar manner on prior occasions.”

Scott was charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse, a first degree felony, on Wednesday, September 24th.